If you live or work in or near Washington County and care about the county's future transportation choices, please participate in the “Online Open House.”

Washington County is embarking on a $1.5 million study to evaluate current transportation conditions and explore what sort of transportation options the county should have over the next 50 years. The county wants to know what you value in a transportation system.

When Franklin Jones founded B-Line, a sustainable bike delivery and advertising company, he drew on a wealth of experiences. From his background as a bike and pedestrian planner and then as a sixth-grade humanities teacher to his bike travels through Japan, Europe, and other places abroad, Jones was exposed to the fabric of many cities.

There’s a reason why the statistics published in the Portland Business Alliance’s 2014 Economic Impacts of Transportation study are attention-grabbing: The possibility of spending 69 hours per year in traffic and congestion by 2040 is enough to persuade even the most ardent public transit advocate to support the construction of massive superhighways. After all, who wouldn’t want an additional $928 million in annual economic output and sales or 8,300 new jobs as a result of an improved system? These statistics were reported in the Portland Tribune’s Jan.

Thanks to passionate advocacy by youth, the City of Eugene is moving from general goals to steadfast statute when it comes to climate change. City Councilors voted July 28 to adopt a strong climate change ordinance seeking to cut fossil fuel use to 50 percent below 2010 levels by 2030.

The City of Springfield is considering expanding its urban growth boundary to pursue the possibility of new large-scale employment, but recent calculations show the cost to serve any expansion with infrastructure could be overwhelming.

The Register-Guard reports:

City officials have identified five areas where Springfield could expand its urban growth boundary, and roughly calculated how much it would cost to extend sewer and streets and collect stormwater to serve that future development.

How we get around is changing. Oregonians are driving less, and they want and need safer, more efficient transportation choices. Metro is creating an unprecedented regional Active Transportation Plan to guide investments in walking, biking, and transit access across the greater Portland region. 1000 Friends has joined a coalition of eight healthy and livability organizations to submit comments on the draft plan.

Over $116 million that would have simply paid for debt service on the Columbia River Crossing over the next two years can now be applied to important maintenance projects elsewhere, reports the Daily Journal of Commerce:

That is because $116.6 million that the state expects to receive in federal money – previously allocated to pay for two years of debt service on the CRC – could be reallocated to eight highway projects around the state, Oregon Department of Transportation officials said this week.

This year's short legislative session was a typically wild ride in Salem. When legislators concluded their work on March 7, we emerged with big wins on some important topics, but also some key questions left unanswered. Here are our 5 key takeaways from this session.

Oregon is at a pivotal moment in its transportation future. Will we proceed with a risky $2.8 billion-plus Columbia River Crossing project, with Oregon shouldering the whole burden? Our new report outlines the reasons to say "no."